SpaceX's offering is not 3G data speeds per user. It's 3G data speed shared between all users in a "cell". Current Starlink cells are 150 square miles. Which requires drastically limiting what users can use it for to avoid overwhelming the satellites. Initially they will only allow text messages (not just SMS though, they plan to support certain messaging apps). Maybe voice calls in the future.

But yeah, SpaceX's offering is going to be better if it works as advertised. Doesn't require buying a new phone. Doesn't require holding your phone pointing in a particular direction for minutes at a time. Can be used for any purpose, not just emergencies.

There's also ATS SpaceMobile which is similar to what SpaceX is doing but plans to use much bigger antennas on the satellites to offer higher bandwidth, enabling general data service rather than just SMS or voice. But they're a little farther out than SpaceX.

Tmobile Starlink is text only. It definitely does not support 3G data speeds.

They've stated it can do 2-4Mbps per cell region, which actually is 3G speeds if you're the only person in the region.

In practice not 3G speeds, but still much better than what this Apple / Globalstar service will be capable of.

There are often way more than 4 million people within 150 miles of populated cities in the States (which consequently is also a large portion of the population). For many people 2-4mbps per cell is less than 1 bps which I think is unreal.

My guess is their estimates are off and that satellite net speeds don’t correlate directly to regular network speeds because of all the other factors. If it’s actually 2-4Mbps… yikes, this would only be useful when you’re far away from populated areas (which in all reality could be their intended use case)

Only using it in very remote areas that literally have no other communications available is exactly the point of the T-Mobile/Starlink service. Obviously they're not trying to outperform terrestrial cellular networks with satellite comms. So mostly the same use-case as the Apple/Globalstar service.

Except from the sounds of it the Apple service actually is something like 1bps, since they stated in the video it can take "only" 15 seconds to send one message. (assuming an emergency SOS message size of 15 bytes when compressed)

You're not going to connect to a satellite while you're in a city. Only when you're in a middle of nothing and that's the whole point.

iPhone 14 users will enjoy both though right?

tmobile iphone 14 users are about to be the most connected people on the planet

Lacking a SIM card so I would say no.

They lack a physical SIM, still have up to 8 eSIMs. What difference does it make for using T-Mobile?